It’s been an incredible few days in the Pearl River Delta with clear blue skies and blazing sun, but it’s all about to come to an end.

It’s literally the “calm before the storm”, and the storm, named Utor, is 800 kilometres away from the shores of South China as this story is published.  The Hong Kong Observatory expects to raise signal 1 later this afternoon as the typhoon inches closer. It’s current trajectory shows it slamming into western Guangdong by mid week.

The forecast for the next seven days is mostly wet and stormy, so batten down the hatches.  If you’ve got some photos of the storm, we’d love to publish them. Just end them over to admin-at-thenanfang-dot-com.

Updated @ 16:09

The Hong Kong Observatory officially issued standby signal 1 at 4:05pm.

Reports of the typhoon’s damage in the Philippines are also coming in.  One report, from the New York Times, says 23 fishermen there are missing:

Typhoon Utor, described as the strongest typhoon globally so far this year, slammed ashore in mountainous eastern Aurora province with sustained winds of 175 kilometers (109 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 210 kph (130 mph).

Utor is 730 kilometres from the PRD at the time this was published (4:12pm).

Updated @ 9:37 Tuesday August 13

The Hong Kong Observatory issued standby signal no. 3 at 4:40 this morning. It says Utor is about 460 km southwest of the PRD, and is moving towards the west coast of Guangdong.

It’s clouded over in Shenzhen and Hong Kong as the storm advances.